Euphony
by Nerumi H
Summary: It's hard to need to hate someone after you spent so much time loving them. But now, maybe hating them is all you have left. Dell/Yuuma.


.title.: **Euphony**

.summary.: **It's hard to need to hate someone after you spent so much time loving them. But now, maybe hating them is all you have left.**

.characters.: **VY2 Yuuma/Honne Dell.**

.warnings.:** Dell language. nbd.**

.a/n.:** Why not angst? Lyrics by Taylor Swift of course, the queen of break-ups. Everyone shut up I love her. Playlist consisted entirely of her sad songs, most notably Sad Beautiful Tragic. Maybe if you listen to it while reading, it will actually seem sad.**

**EMMY THIS MEANS NOTHING I JUST NEEDED TO PUT DELL IN PAIN XD**

**So, without further ado, enjoy my whiny gays~**

**X**

_In dreams, I meet you in warm conversation._

_We both wake in lonely beds, in different cities._

_And time is taking its sweet time erasing you;_

_You got your demons and darling, they all look like me._

X x X

"I can probably slam the door a thousand times in your face and you wouldn't get the picture, would you."

Dell folds his arms and fixes Yuuma with his shadowed glower, the typical defense, and flicks the end of his cigarette into the bed of the alley. He lets it burn a little bit before crushing it out with his heel, letting himself realize it's down to the filter—and then he wants to whip out another. Busy himself instead of staring and glaring and holding his gold gaze like it actually proved something to look away.

He didn't expect to see him back here.

Yuuma pushes his hair back from his face, turning down his eyes in any direction but at Dell. Perhaps he is finally realizing that coming here was not a good idea. He'd had the whole traffic-congested drive and who knew how many nights of wondering, but it didn't sink in until this very moment.

He mutters with an attempted lightness, "Y'always were dramatic..."

Dell sighs in a way that reinforces Yuuma's comment, and he immediately wants to reel it back in. "Are you trying to get on my good side with that?"

And Yuuma just shuffles in the alley grime, aware of his misstep as usual. Not correct. They aren't friends. They aren't friends, anymore.

They're in the shadows of Dell's apartment and he's warped into a toneless dark colour, until he resembles an awkward slouched piece of the shadows himself. He reveals finally, "I just came t'pick some stuff up."

Dell waves a hand. On the way down he can't help but brush it by his pocket where the tempting pack of cigarettes lay. '_This is your effect, hotshot. Make me into some shaky mess.'_ "Bad excuse. You took everything already."

Yuuma nips at his bottom lip and insists patiently, "There's a few—"

Dell however doesn't share that tolerance. He raises his voice, lifting that hand again as a signal for him to shut up. "Bad. Excuse."

Yuuma bites a bit harder, closing his eyes a moment. They haven't been in the same space long, but he knows Dell is going to do his best to turn Yuuma into ice and cast him away to the sea again. It's what always happens. It's what the girls cry about in the bathrooms and the television dramas overuse and what the psychologists overanalyse. He'd expected it, maybe from the very second they met, so he shouldn't make any fit about it.

Of course, that doesn't make it any easier to face. He doesn't want to be here. He really doesn't. He doesn't want to get yelled at again, like always. And out of this thought he hears himself retorting shakily, "It's not an excuse. Do y'really think I wanted t' come back here?"

And that halts Dell, not because he actually believes Yuuma, and not because he's reacting to the recognition of the shiver in his tone. It gives him the lightest satisfaction, actually, to hear Yuuma falter like that—like maybe now that he'd realised he was going to act in front of Dell like he did when they were fighting, he'd turn tail and give up and leave with those sour memories gnawing at his mind.

What stops Dell's refusal is that beneath that quiver, Yuuma actually does sound determined.

"Fine," Dell snaps, and steps off the wall and turns to the back doorway of the apartment. It doesn't matter. It'll be better if Yuuma clears out every speck of dust that implied he was once here. He doesn't look back, hoping Yuuma will trail along like he used to.

He hopes for a lot of things nowadays and not all of them are all too kind, to Yuuma or himself.

Yuuma complies as usual, a few steps behind and catching the glass door that Dell pointedly doesn't keep open for him. It is a bit of a cheap shot, that, but then again, that's just what Dell does. Acted as if the little things didn't even require the effort, simply for the effect of being especially unaccommodating. It doesn't really irritate Yuuma that much, like it probably should. He knows what it's born out of, because he feels it too, and to blame Dell would be to blame himself.

They head down the cheap imbalanced stairs, Dell and his mockingly nicknamed 'basement suite', and he unlocks the room with a key he has Yuuma's copy of somewhere in the apartment itself. The door swings open, instantaneously embedding a shard in Yuuma's memories.

Nothing bad happened here, really. It was like a spell would take over them when they stepped over the threshold, as if the low ceilings and malfunctioning oven and screeching alarm clocks and cabinets Dell couldn't reach the top shelf of and stacks of Yuuma's 'douchebag sunglasses' by the door made them forget everything they hated about each other. And suddenly there was purer bliss.

Hated. That was a Dell kind of thing. 'I hate when you do that', 'I hate when you do this'. It was such a common word and didn't hold all that much power, but when it was Dell, it hurt a lot more. I hate when you're you, so fucking fix it.

Yuuma doesn't think that he can say in full confidence that he hates anything about Dell. There are a lot of flaws, that's for sure, but they were only the nicks and stains over something beautiful, and when you appreciate enough, they don't even stand out that much. They're part of what makes the image, itself.

He didn't let Dell know that enough.

This time when Yuuma ducks through the door, Dell shuns away the apartment's enchantment by snapping, "Get what you need and leave."

Yuuma tightens his jacket around himself to hide himself from the glare Dell is giving him, the one picking him apart piece by piece until he's just a mess in the floorboards. He almost forgets for a second what he came to get but when he sees the cracked-open door of their—his—Dell's room, he recalls it.

Dell follows, surprisingly not hounding on his heels, or maybe not surprising at all. He never really did want to be held or touched or even breathed on. It was childish and stupid and ridiculous and immature and it stung every time he jerked out of the way of Yuuma's hands and Yuuma often kind of wondered in a little horribly concerned part of his mind that maybe Dell's detest could be explained by something rare and mental but he never really pried. Because Dell was a theatrical bitch sometimes so it probably meant nothing.

As if he'd tell Yuuma anything anyways.

Would he have, if he'd made it a little more apparent that he was there?

He tried the best he could, really, he tried his best to open up the steel cell that was Dell's mind but he'd just end up with bleeding fingers.

That wasn't Dell's fault. Yuuma just didn't understand him.

No, he wasn't a theatrical bitch, no, he wasn't anything; he was just Dell.

Yuuma can't blame him. He shouldn't blame him. It's not all his fault.

How could Dell hate him so easily, when Yuuma struggled even_ listening _to his own vindictive thoughts? He felt like if he let too many slide into his mind, he'd go fucking crazy with the fury and the broiling guilt.

He enters the bedroom, tightening the jacket. It's changed only slightly since two weeks ago, a little messier, a little more haywire. The bed doesn't look too big for one person, not at all—it actually wasn't all that big in the first place anyway, because Dell was stingy with money and didn't like people living with him permanently, so when Yuuma somewhat-moved-in they slept there in that single-and-a-half bed and that was the only time Dell didn't throw a fit at being cuddled.

Dell parts his lips to make a dig at him, before realising that it would acknowledge that something between them did indeed happen in this house, and he doesn't really want to get into that. He'd done enough of the reminiscing routine—the accumulation of bullshit of every single thing that linked him and Yuuma together, which was, well, everything. So many chains holding it all together until it stretched too tight over his mind and body and cussing out the senseless apparition of Yuuma didn't suffice anymore to ease him.

Remembering sucked when you couldn't stop the memories from snowing you in.

Remembering hurt when you knew that someday, somewhere, those tiny instances—the way Yuuma's eyes slanted up at the corners when he smiled, the way his fingers lingered always over Dell's hip with shivering static in the tiny space between them that Dell didn't know how to close without ruining the comfort of knowing Yuuma was always resting there by him—someday, you wouldn't remember them at all.

And knowing it was your doing that sentenced this excruciating torture, made you want every waking minute to just...disappear.

Dell orders, "Hey. Get on with it."

Yuuma realises he's been paused, staring at the surroundings, so with a little jolt he returns to his search. He opens the closet, gingerly as if expecting something to fall on him.

A whole arrangement of collared shirts and suit jackets are lined up like artillery. They rattle as Yuuma pushes them over and finds one of the black ones, silk dark purple lining inside of it.

Dell bristles at the handling of his jackets—whatever belonged to him belonged only to _him_—and Yuuma simply reaches into one of the pockets and pulls something out.

Dell knows what it is.

Dell found it days ago when he'd been driven into rearranging every iota of atmosphere in his apartment because the physical memories were corruptly tapping on his shoulder at every turn. He'd shaken the jacket and that folded-up paper tumbled out, soft worn edges communicating how old it was.

He should have thrown it out, but if he did, he'd have to explain to Yuuma what he did to it. But maybe the soreness of his expression would've felt a little like revenge.

Yuuma pushes the note into his slim jeans pocket without looking at it and delicately hangs the jacket back up.

He turns around to leave and then there's a sudden, horrid moment where they realise the other has been watching them and their gazes lock and Dell tries to sever it with another one of his glares. But Yuuma knows that expression too well. It is a dare, has always been a dare, for the other person to look away and make him the winner of that stupid little match of wills. Small victories. Dell lived on them because he never could win the big ones.

That fact rattles through Yuuma's chest, a bit too sharp for his liking. Everything inside him says to keep that gaze, gold to red, show Dell that after everything, he isn't ready to back off. He didn't hold anything over him.

But he did. God, he did, and they both must have known it.

Dell was a moron and offensive and atrocious and sick and a mess, a mangled ruined _mess_, welded and smacked into a human shape. That's why Yuuma could look past all the bad things. He'd feel guilty if he reacted to them, because it wasn't Dell's fault his past had not been kind and his mind didn't work the most pleasantly.

He felt guilty, so guilty now, for leaving him like this.

But no—no—Dell left him. Dell started it. Dell pushed him down as he tried to bring himself up.

He still cannot blame him.

Yuuma was the one who'd made Dell want to get out.

Dell just says, "Was that all?"

And Yuuma is suddenly offended by the tone of it, like that letter meant nothing, like he'd been expecting a vacuum or a collection of DVD's or an engagement ring. He could only be so lucky. He says, "D'you know what that note says?"

Dell's face flickers. A shivery moment like someone added a fake frame in his reel of expressions, a twitch of his lip that Yuuma had never seen before. And Yuuma _knows_ he's never seen it before. There was once a time where he took such passionate care of Dell that he could read anything that passed his face, inked into his voice.

And Dell admits painfully, "Yes."

That hits Yuuma deep. He read it. He did. He listened, if only for a second. That complete, scripted list of everything right between them, and everything that was, back then, a 'will be' and is now a 'could have been.'

"And you call _me_ dramatic," he says, hollow, forcing his attitude into a place it does not fit. He wants to say things, but they are not the things that rise to his lips. That is always the case.

Yuuma bites his lip again, as that seems to be the only alternative to speaking. What is there to say? Dell had read it after they'd separated, Yuuma knows, for if he'd seen it when Yuuma had originally planted it, he'd have tossed it onto Yuuma's lap and announced haughtily, _"I'm expecting you to make all of those things happen."_

But he didn't find it in that jacket over dinner because it had never happened. Dell had just yelled at him out in the hallway that night.

Just yelled.

That's what Yuuma had been trying to fix, give him a little boost on that bad, imploding day, to let him know Yuuma was here, he was always here, he had a million things he wanted to do with him and **_yes _**he'd fulfill them all and Dell would be happy.

Happiness is a far star to reach for, now, and Dell knows it. He's known it for a long time.

Yuuma chokes out, "What went wrong?"

The question is a heavy weight in Dell's chest—it's no stranger to that place, for that is where it has been making its home for the past long time. Even before it really ended, when he could tell he was losing what he had. He wants to answer, "me, me, me, me, when is it ever not me?" because he knows all too well he'd been the one kicking at the foundations and breathing in the dust until it settled like a desert and slowly began to suffocate him. But why? What was the gain in that?

Another small success, breaking Yuuma's heart?

Why did he always have to ruin things, including the one person who could help him stop it?

His soul had been shattered, and while before people just stomped on the shards while he scrambled to gather them, he'd found comfort in someone who built each piece into a flowering mosaic.

Tried to, before he'd smashed it down again.

No point questioning it. He'd hurt him, and with the most vehemence out of all of them.

Fucked up again.

Yuuma has taken on his own thoughts, believing that Dell won't answer when he's frozen with that stoic mask of animosity. He closes his eyes. "Things shouldn't've fallen out that way but they—they just did. I shouldn't've let them. I'm sorry."

And suddenly Yuuma hears a hiccup, such a young innocent sound that was so misplaced when he realises it had come from Dell. A hiccup that slips and slides and lunges for purchase but it can't and then, right there in front of him, Dell begins to cry. He crushes his hand against his mouth like it would hold it all in, but his fingers are shaking hard and can't protect the way he's breaking open from the intrusive—useless—wrong—gaze Yuuma veils over him.

Dell is washed over with a hot embarrassment, sluicing down him to morph into fury, at himself, at Yuuma. He shoves away the ego because there's no way to gather its grimy pieces back up at this point, he knows, so he just spits, "Don't say you're sorry—don't say you're fucking sorry!"

Yuuma's mouth is glued shut for a few moments, just by this display. He'd never ever seen it before. He manages, trying not to watch the tears so much because he feels his own scratching at his throat, "I—I know it doesn't mean anything anym—"

"Shut _up!_ Give yourself a fucking break! You're—" Dell breaks off in a fit of erratic coughs in an effort to put himself back on track; it's like he's forgotten how to speak and breathe while crying. Or, well, Yuuma supposes he's never truly known.

Finding his air again, Dell's hand slips away from its guard of his mouth. He's calmed down exponentially with the flood of oxygen, the panic of his own physical reaction reduced to embers so he's still a broken edge, but his voice isn't exploding when he hisses, "You shouldn't take the blame for me. You've done that enough."

Yuuma stands quietly. Shocked. The red of Dell's iris seems to be blooming out over his whole eye as the salt of tears grate into a surface that hardly knows what they are.

A deep, quivering breath, bleaching the slate clean. He's trying to wake a tiny, feeble twist of a smirk that's trying so hard to be seen over the uncontrollable shivers of his unsteady breathing—trying too hard, but Yuuma knows it's real.

"Just—...just let me have this one."

Those words make it feel like the end.

He gives in and without further thought, takes Dell by the shoulders, bringing him into a gentle, weightless hug. He's warm, breathing out of sync to the pattern he reinvents every couple seconds when a slight sob or hiccup creeps up, yet he relaxes into the sudden homeliness of Yuuma's embrace.

A second passes then he mutters, "I'm sorry."

Dell knows he's a liar and for a moment he fears Yuuma won't believe him, but there's something in the way Yuuma hugely exhales and brings him closer into that bony yet strangely comfortable hug that lets Dell know he's heard him, understood him.

So when Dell lets Yuuma out of the apartment, the note in the trash and the water kettle that neither could remember who bought under his arm, he can say a, "See you later," with an odd confidence to it. Maybe they didn't work well as a couple. Maybe too many puzzle pieces didn't fit together, and that was just the way it works. Maybe they were working on the wrong puzzle, and there's one with a 'happily ever after' somewhere in the back of the shelf or simply not in existence.

And maybe...the 'see you later' won't actually happen; it will become just another mark on the note Yuuma has torn up and thrown away. Another wish. Another hope. Another promise.

But at least, once upon a time, those promises meant so much.

* * *

**A/N: Eeeeeehhh I have such an issue with Dell crying. I've written many things (both published and unpublished) where I shove him to the edge, but I never make him cry. Idk I just don't like that pathetic kind of look on him. And yet this is a sexist view so I should just suck it up and make him cry. So that is what I did.**

**Look at that ending, man. I'm too much of a pessimist. And lazy as fuck.**

**Read and review please! It would mean a lot and maybe I'll give you something except probably not.**


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